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Greaves View: Cult Mine
Cult Mine Damos Crusade Campaign I made it back to Vandal's ship. After the entire mishap in the station, I survived and returned to the Zanzibar in one piece. When I asked Vandal why he didn't noitfy me of his plan to transfer me, he merely said, "I didn't? I thought I did."............. He's lying out of his ass. I know it, but I dare not make a fuss. He is still my superior officer. Our ship was in dire need of excavating equipment in order to dig up the ship in Airam. In order to upgrade our cargo, Vandal ordered the ship to make port at a mining asteroid. The commander in charge of the operations was a good friend of his, named Cleotus, and would be most likely to trade for a fair price. Without any delay, we set course for the mine, and landed without any incident. We hear a transmission originating from the asteroid asking for food, in trade for tools. (It seems we're in luck.) I left my sniper in my room, and went outside to join the others. Welneff, the weird boy ork, Kalei, Vandal, Narvaris, and Zickle were looking around for any mining crewman that would be on the bridge. Strangely enough there didn't seem to be anybody on the bridge, not a single soul to be spotted. Welneff went off playing his squig pipes, which sounded like yowling cats scratching a black board. Kalei went to ventilation shaft and looked inside of it. He went back to the captain, trying to convince him that something psychic was on the asteroid and that we should get out of here. Vandal calmly talked him down and went further into the asteroid mine. We arrived at a mess hall and saw, as Vandal had said to Kalei earlier, all the mining crew eating their meal at the same time. A buzzer rang, and as one, the mining crew got up and formed a line. (They seemed a little too in sync...) Vandal pulled one of the miners to the side and asked him where he could find the commander; and before he could answer Kalei asked him why no one was at the bridge to greet them. The fellow replied, "Ah don't worry the boss sees all that happens. He looks at us from the observation deck. He keeps us safe." He twitches constantly as he talks. We leave the mess hall, and find the observation deck. Kalei pushes the doors open. Inside we see a dignified man.....putting...on...makeup....... (What?) "Ah, hello Vandal Conningham! To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?" Vandal talks to Cleotus for a small amount of time, leaving the rest of the crew to discuss the situation. Kalei points out that putting on makeup in the military was a trend that happened over ten years ago, but the trend had died rather quickly. In most areas anyways. Kalei then spoke up to Cleotus, "Sir, are you aware that you have an infection on this ship?" Cleotus replied that they did hire some exterminators, but they haven't had any luck finding out whatever is on the ship. They did catch some footage of the "thing" on camera, but Maintenance Chief Gibbs had it. After this, Cleotus went straight back to talking trade with Vandal, but the Captain told Cleotus that they would need to inspect the cargo prior to transferring it unto the Zanzibar. Cleotus seemed disappointed, but agreed to Vandal's terms. We went down to the maintenance block, and found Gibbs, who turned out to be the twitchy fellow from earlier. We asked to see the footage, and he said "Oh, you want to see IT do you? My, my such curious people. We did have others look for it too, but they ended up missing, or dead. We used the dead ones as bait, but were largely unsuccessful. BUT! We did get this video." As he turned on the screen, he injected a stimm into himself. One of us asked if it was okay for him to use that. "But I need this! I haven't slept for the past five days! The eyes keep staring at me, so I haven't had a moments rest!" We view the footage, but since it moved too fast, we paused it at the best moment for us see the being. It was a hunched figure, covered in rags. It reminded me of the thing we saw on Airam, but it looked too different to be considered the same type of creature. In order to investigate this further, we inquired where we could inspect the bodies of those that had died from the creature. Gibbs said that all the bodies were sent to the doctor to be disintegrated. We bid Gibbs farewell, and continued to look for evidence of this thing. Kalei, once again shoved the doors open, hoping to catch the doctor by surprise. Inside the doctor's lab, we had to deal with a robot that wanted to give us an injection. As we dealt with the thing, the doctor appeared, and asked us our business. "Did you come here to receive the serum, if so stand right up. Why don't you come first?" (Points to Kalei) Kalei shook his head and refused. He went up to me next, but recieved the same answer. The ork on the other hand stood right up and said "Allrite, I'll dake da ingection. Bunch a babies!" And so Wellneff gladely offered his body for the serum. While Wellneff kept the doctor busy. I took a look around. I notice Zickle grabbing some of the doctor's gear. I also saw a rather lack of blood or dirt despite the place being lab. He must've cleaned it recently. I decided to smell the surrounding air..........!!! The doctor! I go up to him and say. "You smell funny. Why is that?" "Ah, well I did just come back from burning some bodies, come over here and see for yourself." He pointed behind him, at the door from where he came in. We followed into the incinerating room. The incinerator was large enough to put several people inside. Good for turning a mass of flesh into ash. I took a deep smell, but the ash did not contain the same scent doctor had. No. He did not just smell of burnt flesh; His scent had something alien to it. I was about to press him when I heard Narvaris speak inside my head. (Not that I didn't mind what he had to say, and I do like to be informed of things, but I would rather that he ''didn't go into my head.) "This doctor isn't in control of his actions. He heard voices telling him where to find his serum, deep within the mines. Ever since he discovered it, all that the voices ever let him think about is to infect as many of the crew as he could. He's a puppet under control of some psychic being." Before I can do anything, Welneff waghs, and green orky energy surrounds all of us in an instant. The next moment, we found ourselves out of the doctor's incinerator room, and on some other point in the asteroid mine. A couple of us lose our lunch. Welneff then charges the doctor. Kalei intercepted him, and put him into a grapple. The doctor complained about this treatment from the ork, but now wasn't the time for talk. Welneff was aggressively fighting Kalei off of him, sicking his squigs at him while wrestling him for control of the grapple. Zickle managed to grab Welneff's staff. I see my chance to get rid of this dangerous, and unstable creature. I take my powersword in hand, and strike him. Vandal shot his gun into the air. "ENOUGH!! ALL OF YOU CEASE THIS AT ONCE!! HAVE YOU NOT NOTICE THAT THE DOCTOR HAS ESCAPED?!?" We immediately stop our fight, and separate from each other. Indeed the doctor had vanished. "Zickle give Wellneff back his staff, he needs it to control himself. Zickle passed the staff to me, and I gave it back to the ork, but I still harbored ill will towards the ork for his outburst, so I punched him. Wellneff immediately tried to hit me with his staff, but I easily parried it. "GREAVES! Do I need to repeat myself?" I replied "No sir." and backed off from Wellneff. Vandal, then told the ork to go back to the ship to get medical help for the cut I made on him, and to get examined for whatever effects the serum had. We went back to the docking bay, and saw that Cleotus had all of his tools boxed up in front of our ship. After inspecting each crate, we saw no signs of contamination. Once we got that mess settled, Kalei spoke to the crew that all the signs that are occurring here, are the result of gene stealers. I never heard of something like this, but from the way he described them, it seems that this asteroid is in dire trouble if we don't do something about it now. With this in mind, we went into an elevator shaft, and descended into the mines; This time without Wellneff. Once we got off, the lights turned off. The electricity had been turned off, leaving us in the dark, and cutting our escape route (the elevator) off. It was a good thing we all had flashlights, because it was as dark as a moonless night down there. I had little problem since both of my eyes help me see in the dark, but the others would not be so lucky. We encountered a couple of miners in robes, and Zickle tried to ask them some questions. One of the miners went up to Zickle in a threatening manner, and attacked. Long story short, we lived, they died. They were unusual however, their skin was not as it was supposed to be. Instead of the usual human flesh, thier skin was rough, almost reptilian like. Continuing our descent, we found a fork inside the tunnel. Zickle suggested going right, but I felt like going left. After a moment's thought, everyone, including Zickle, believed it was best to go with the guy with animal instincts. ''(I really didn't '''feel' anything, I just felt like going left, but if they want to go my way, I'm not going to tell them that.) A little after we went left, we heard growling from behind us in the distance; It seemed to originate from the right path. ''(Maybe it was animal instincts after all.) '' The path led to cavern, filled with several men in robes. They took notice of our presence and came running at us with pickaxes, and shovels. We bring out our guns and open fire on them. Our bullets hit their mark, and eventually end the mob before they could reach us. Now unhindered we went further down the mines. ' '''